Guardian of Thunder
by Anya Urameshi
Summary: The lightning that strikes without mercy. Tsuna ponders to himself about his youngest guardian and whether or not replacing him might not be such a bad idea. No real pairings.


A/N: I've always kind of wondered about this. I mean, as useless as everyone always claims Lambo to be, I don't recall anyone actually complaining about his position past the fact that it was a bad idea to give the ring to a five-year-old (which it really sort of was, Iemitsu, seriously....-_-U).

---------------------------------------

Sometimes, Tsuna thought that it would be in everyone's best interest if he replaced Lambo.

The kid wasn't really cut out for the mafia life, even if he had been pretty gung-ho about it when he was younger. His tendency to run away from conflict rather than actually stay and fight was a hindrance that prevented Tsuna from sending his youngest guardian on solo missions or even particularly dangerous ones and even then the boy always came home in or near tears because of something awful that had happened during his time gone.

The fact that his Thunder Guardian was easily prone to tears was another factor. The boy would literally cry at the drop of a hat and had on more than one occasion. If Lambo wasn't so prone to wearing barily-buttoned shirts, Tsuna might've actually questioned the kid's gender (and still had despite that) given the way his moods tended to swing about in the same way a woman's would.

Lambo wasn't all faults, of course, no matter what they all had thought at least once. He had an odd way of trying to cheer people up whenever they were upset that Tsuna was pretty sure had come from either his own mother or the boy's sister as it was very maternal in a way that always made Tsuna wonder if Lambo really would have been better off if he'd been born female.

His Thunder Guardian was also one of the neatest people he knew. It was a borderline-OCD trait that had the boy cleaning up a mess before anyone else had even noticed that one had been made. It wasn't uncommon for Lambo to volunteer to do clean-up work for everyone else and even Tsuna himself was guilty of leaving his chores for his guardian to finish. The boy was also the only one who ever touched the bathrooms, for which everyone was oddly grateful even as they teased him about it relentlessly.

Lambo had also begun to take teasing reletively well. He didn't start crying on the spot like he had when he was younger, or try to blow someone up quite as often, and it was hard to even tell if the boy was really even upset because mostly he would just smile and walk away. That was another thing that worried Tsuna about his Thunder Guardian. As the years passed, the boy had become more and more despondent so that he hardly reacted to anything anymore. He was still a crybaby and a wimp, but he had also begun to not cry whenever anyone could see him.

His temper was also becoming a liability as it started to coincide with his Dying Will which was already triggered by the resolve that Lambo had only ever been able to conjure up when truly upset. Freak power outings had become a regular occurence around the base in the same way that Yamamoto's laughter and Hibari's threats had always been when they were younger (and still sort of where) and it was often the case that Tsuna was having to take money out of Lambo's paycheck to pay for damage costs. The boy had been violent when he was younger, but then it had been in the cute way that most children were destructive because they just didn't know any better. Now, it was slightly scary because it made Tsuna realize that in another life Lambo could've been a threat to them and possibly still had the potential if he wasn't so devoted to the Vongola despite his ties to a rival family.

Lambo was a Bovino. That was another concern that had plagued the young Vongola boss's thoughts recently. His Thunder Guardian openly flaunted the fact in a way that always pissed Gokudera off because it was like the child was saying that he didn't care about the Tenth because he had another boss of his own to answer too. Sometimes, Tsuna wondered just how much Lambo really was affiliated with his own family still. It was a seed of doubt that he couldn't quite shake despite numerous assurances on his Thunder Guardian's behalf. The niggling suspicion was always there along with the belief that maybe Lambo was a lot stronger than he let on.

His recent friendship with Mukuro was something else that had Tsuna potentially worried. He supposed that it was mostly his own fault for throwing his last two (technically three) Guardians together when the other four had already paired up (albeit mostly accidentally), but Ipin, for all her excellent combat skills, wasn't really a Guardian and it didn't seem right to partner up two people of like attributes (epecially when both of them still technically shared the same body most of the time); and, really, when he thought about it, this friendship (however strange and troublesome it may have been) was probably good for the both of them. Tsuna had noticed a distinct lack of trust among his other subordinates concerning his male Mist Guardian (and sometimes his female counterpart, though not as much) and an obvious animosity toward his Thunder Guardian that left him concerned in a way that was more friend than boss (a fact which seemed to amuse Mukuro greatly) and had been almost thrilled the day he walked into the sitting room to find them playing video games together with Ipin cheering them on in the background. Even though the rational part of his brain told him that Mukuro had Chrome and his Kokuyo gang, while Lambo had Ipin and his two friends from school whom he sometimes talked about, it still made Tsuna happy to know that they were developing something that was at least camaraderie between the two of them.

But it was still all very worrisome, and left Tsuna right back to where he had been at the beginning and where he always ended up. Should he replace Lambo? _Could _he even replace one of his Guardians? If he could, and he did, then who would be better than what he already had?

"Y'know...if you think too much, your brain is going to start smoking."

Tsuna jolted out of his thoughts with a guilty look at the familiar face of his Thunder Guardian standing in the doorway to his office. The seventeen-year-old was smiling, but even without his Hyper Intuition, Tsuna could detect the hurt coming off the boy and knew that he had probably been thinking out loud again and that Lambo had probably heard every word.

Before he could say anything in reply, the boy was gone again leaving Tsuna feeling bad for even thinking about the whole mess in the first place, as it always did.

(Besides...wasn't it Reborn who once said that Lambo was perfect for the position?) he thought, leaning back in his chair with another deep sigh. (And Reborn is generally right.)

---------------------------------------

A/N: Vongola Thunder....the lightning that strikes without mercy. Somehow, that sounds like Lambo is going to become very impulsive when he gets older (not that he isn't already XD).


End file.
